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Beef Gravy

A savory gravy made by simmering beef, bacon or ham, carrot, onion, cloves, celery, and water for three hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Beef Gravy

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Beef Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Put the bacon or ham into a stewpan.

  2. Add the beef, carrot, onion, cloves, and celery.

  3. Pour in the water and let it simmer for three hours.

  4. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gravy beef
Supplies the meat and collagen that give the stock body and rich flavor as it simmers.
Bacon or ham
Adds smoky, savory fat that deepens the overall flavor of the broth.
Onion
Contributes sweetness and aromatic depth as it cooks down into the liquid.
Celery
Adds a fresh, savory aroma that rounds out the broth's background flavor.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for three hours. A gentle simmer extracts flavor and gelatin slowly. A hard boil makes the liquid cloudy and can toughen the meat, so keep the surface barely moving.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, beef, carrot, onion, celery):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, beef, carrot, onion, celery. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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